Share This Post

This is the sixth part of a series that will cover all of the top 50 Cryptocurrencies and provide an introduction to what the coin does, why it matters, and any important highlights. The goal of the Top 50 series is to give readers a basic understanding of each coin that simplifies a thorough technical understanding down into a few easy to understand points. The ranking of coins changes on a day by day basis and may not always reflect the order in this article.

26 of 50 — Bitcoin Gold (BTG)

Bitcoin Gold is a fork of Bitcoin that occurred in 2017. The main focus of the Bitcoin Gold fork was to eliminate the increasing dominance of ASIC miners, the specialized mining units that provide tremendously increased hashing power over GPUs and CPUs.

The downside to ASIC miners is that the manufacturing of these units is almost entirely controlled by a single company — Bitmain. Once ASICs become deployed on a chain, it becomes impossible to efficiently mine the chain using anything else.

The goal of Bitcoin Gold is to try to prevent ASIC mining and promote greater mining decentralization. Bitcoin Gold is the largest Bitcoin fork beside Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV. Unfortunately, Bitcoin Gold lacks enough hashing power to make it truly resistant to 51 percent attacks and has suffered a 51 percent attack in the past.

27of 50 — QTUM (QTUM)

QTUM is a hybrid Bitcoin and Ethereum Virtual Machine blockchain. It was created with an account layer that allows integration with sidechains. QTUM uses a proof-of-stake consensus protocol. The goal with QTUM was to combine Bitcoin’s value storing properties with Ethereum’s computational abilities. QTUM benefits from developments in Ethereum and Bitcoin as it shares code.

QTUM is focused on addressing business applications of blockchain technology. It additionally integrates outside data feeds to import data into the blockchain. QTUM features a solid development team and venture backing.

28 of 50 — OmiseGo (OMG)

OmiseGo is a project which is built on top of the Ethereum network and is seeking to provide payment solutions, asset solutions, and exchange solutions. It is a proof-of-stake project that offers the decentralized exchange of blockchain assets. OmiseGo has worked to develop Plasma alongside the Ethereum network.

If OmiseGo achieves what it set out to do, it will provide an easy way for individuals to transfer money across borders and across different currencies. It will also provide a way to exchange various assets (loyalty points, cryptocurrencies, store credit) across a decentralized exchange built on Ethereum.

OmiseGo has made some notable partnerships, including with McDonald’s in Thailand. The company is an extension of Omise, a Thai payment services company that has had notable success in Southeast Asia. It has a broad range of venture backers.

29 of 50 — TrueUSD (TUSD)

TrueUSD is a collateralized stablecoin similar to Tether (USDT). This means that the cryptographic token is backed by deposits of US dollars in an account managed by TrueUSD.

The key differences between TUSD and USDT are that TUSD deposits are regularly audited by a third party auditor. TrueUSD is an ERC-20 token unlike Tether, which is issued on the Omni Layer. TUSD has maintained a relatively stable price unlike some stable coins; however, it has experienced price fluctuations, mainly to selling for more than a dollar, not less.

30 of 50 — Ontology (ONT)

Ontology is an enterprise-facing blockchain solution that has been developed by the founders of NEO. Ontology is mainly a trust network that verifies identities, assets, APIs/SPKs, and different chains in a cross chain ecosystem. The goal is to create a modular and adaptable framework that can be picked up and used by companies without prior blockchain knowledge.

Ontology and NEO are separate companies with different backers. NEO being backed by the community, and Ontology is backed by a Chinese financial group. The developments in NEO benefit Ontology, and there are several initiatives that work for both platforms.